The jet of the active galaxy Pictor A, with X-rays in blue and radio lobes in pink. Image credit:... [+]
From 500 million light years away, the Chandra X-ray telescope has mapped out a 300,000 light year-long jet coming from the galaxy Pictor A.
A composite view of the galaxy Centaurus A, the nearest active galaxy to the Milky Way. Image... [+]
Like many active galaxies, it's powered by a supermassive black hole many millions or even billions of times the mass of our Sun.
A black hole more than a billion times the mass of the Sun powers this X-ray jet that's many... [+]
Some of these black holes accelerate and spit out infalling matter, giving rise to intense emissions.
X-ray emission from the jet in Pictor A. Image credit: "Deep Chandra observations of Pictor A", M.J.... [+]
These span the spectrum from high-energy X-rays down into the low-energy radio.
The X-ray (B&W) and radio (red contours) emissions from the galaxy Pictor A. Image credit: "Deep... [+]
The radio lobes of gas provide a medium for these high-energy X-rays to interact with, creating an intense shock wave where the electrons exceed the speed of sound in the gas.
An annotated version of the X-ray/radio composite image of Pictor A, showing the counterjet, the Hot... [+]
The "hot spot" at the end is the culmination of this jet, which is caused by electrons being continuously accelerated by the galaxy's magnetic field.
Other explanations, such as high-energy electrons boosting a CMB photon into the X-ray, apply to some very distant galaxies, but are ruled out here.
The most distant X-ray jet in the Universe, from quasar GB 1428, located 12.4 billion light years... [+]
The lack of good optical or ultraviolet data mean we still don't know whether this is a spiral or an elliptical galaxy.
The galaxy Pictor A in the optical (main) and the ultraviolet (inset), where its morphology is not... [+]
Despite these unknowns, Pictor A possesses the largest single X-ray jet in the known Universe.
Mostly Mute Monday tells the story of a single astronomical phenomenon or object primarily in visuals, with no more than 200 words of text.
